A wind of cancellation is blowing over festivals.
Art Rock, Main Square, Lollapalooza ... all were forced, once again this year, to postpone their annual meeting because of the health crisis linked to Covid-19.
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The director general of Eurockéennes de Belfort, Jean-Paul Roland, had already spoken of a “
dead end
” during a virtual round table organized by the Senate in mid-March.
Unsurprisingly, the sad news has just fallen.
Initially scheduled from July 1 to 4, with headliners such as Muse, DJ Snake or Massive Attack, the festival was canceled for the second year in a row, a spokesperson told AFP, confirming information from
Eastern Republican
.
Faced with the conditions imposed by the government, forcing them in particular to a limit of 5,000 people maximum and seated (against 130,000 festival-goers over four days in normal times), health restrictions and an insufficient support fund, the organizers saw themselves forced to give up.
“
We had made a projection of a degraded version (of the festival
), explains the director.
The result for a three-day edition shows 866,000 euros in losses, with for example a step at more than 100,000 euros.
And this projection does not take into account structural costs, rents, salaries, insurance: here, we must add between 600,000 and 700,000 euros.
"
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Save the structure or lose money?
To this question, Jean-Paul Roland did not hesitate.
"
For the time being, we do not know precisely the contours or the date of the calendar,
" he recalled.
Impossible, therefore, to take the risk of getting into debt, without being able to get up.
Unfortunately for him, as for his colleagues, the feeling of having been abandoned by the government is growing.
“
It feels like we haven't advanced an inch for over a year.
(...) The requests that we have made so as not to have to cancel so early have not been heard
”, he observed, death in the soul.